An Extinction Rebellion Christmas

Christmas? Resistance is futile. The holiday shopping season remains the flagship ritual of consumerism, the cultural enforcement of capitalism. But then again, the 1 percent has never seen anything like the Extinction Rebellion protests that have recently caught fire.

Finally, we are alarmed and we are panicked and we’re speaking up. Mass extinction? Oh, I get it, extinction. This is about DEATH. Like, you mean, MY death and my kids’ death, my cat and dogs’ death…and the neighbors’…

Well, we could sense this, over the past years. We knew the scientists were right. We’ve been walking around a bit haunted, feeling a strange vertigo… And then, at some point, the radical decline in life forms became directly emotional for us humans. Something about the Irma-Maria-Florence-Michael-Paradise-Malibu series finally broke through to us.

The Extinction Rebellion is breaking through to us from the positive side. This new movement says that we can save our lives if we act together and take the risks. It has been snowballing in the United Kingdom since the summer and revealed itself on Nov. 17, as 6,000 people took over the five London bridges and ground the city to a standstill. Within weeks, Extinction Rebellion activists created holiday disruptions in 35 countries. Here in New York, meetings and actions are a’brewing.

In the end (of the world), there is one issue and that is Life. Each of us has our work and our issue. We are hard at work against racism and sexism and climate change, capitalism and industrial agriculture and guns and war. Point is, we need to be alive for our life work. One job we all have is to survive and save others.

We are made of the Earth. The soil and water and sky is in our blood. Our eyes carry the perspectives of ecosystems, of the forests and wetlands and fields. That’s why we still have a conscience for the Earth. We won’t stop loving the Earth. We can listen to evolution. We can hear the instruction to radically change.

Corporate Christmas is the rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born. But what if that beast is stopped on the highway by a million humans who want to survive? The beast will be stopped by you and I, a superstorm of people. A perfect gift.

— Reverend Billy

Reverend Billy is an activist and political shouter, a post-religious preacher of the streets and bank lobbies. Got a question for Reverend Billy? Just email RevBilly@Indypendent.org and unburden your soul.